Crying in the Book Club

Despite a seemingly never ending series of technical difficulties, the book club got together to discuss Grant Morrison and Yannick Paquette's Wonder Woman: Earth One, a unique and zany reimagining of the iconic DC's character. Our theme music was composed by our wonderful friend Gwyn. You can find their work on Soundcloud at https://soundcloud.com/hopefullynotbadlib . Our podcast art was done by...

Do you guys like having fun? Here at Crying in the Book Club, we enjoy a good time. And very few comics are as good a time as Mark Russell and Stephen Byrne's Wonder Twins , a series released in 2019 that channels the best that silver age comics have to offer. And has a little dollop of social commentary for good measure. Ever wonder if the prison-industrial complex exists in the DC Universe? Well...

It's manga time on Crying in the Book Club, and we have an absolute doozy for this episode: A big chunk of Berserk . For this episode, we read The Black Swordsman and the first half of The Golden Age, or if you're Jean-Luc, just The Golden Age. He can't follow basic instructions. It's the whole crew's first time with Berserk , so no one was entirely sure what to expect. There's a lot of raving abo...

For the first time, the book club heads across the Atlantic rather than the Pacific to tackle a foreign comic. And what better way than with one of the most influential European comics of all time, Tintin. We spend a good amount of time discussing the book, but also the reactionary politics of Tintin's creator, Herge. Next, on Crying in the Book Club: We tackle the early chapters of the seminal da...

Pride month may be over, but the gay comics talk keeps rolling with Maia Kobabe's Genderqueer , the most banned book in America two years running. So what makes it so controversial? Is it the inclusion of a subplot about One Direction fanfiction? The book club tries to puzzle it out, and came away a bit surprised at just how inoffensive the book is. Next, on Crying in the Book Club: We head back i...

Happy pride month! (again) This episode, we close out pride month by talking about one of Emily's favorite books (and soon to be released animated film) Nimona, by ND Stevenson! We talk about everything from Stevenson's excellent art to its origin as a Tumblr webcomic and its portrayal/inclusion of queer characters. Plus Emily and Jean-Luc (especially Jean-Luc) were drinking. Fun times were had by...

Happy pride month! This episode, we're discussing the seminal queer graphic novel Fun Home , Alison Bechdel's autobiography. Which, as we find out, has a surprising amount in common with the 2016 film Suicide Squad . (It really doesn't). There's a lot to discuss in Fun Home , from Bechdel's use of a simple color pallet to her inclusion of tons of literary references, and the book club crew discuss...

Much to all of our chagrin, we have reached the end of the debut RunaMay. There are plenty of Runaways comics left for next year, but we're wrapping things up with the most recent ongoing series featuring our favorite Marvel characters, the 2017 Rainbow Rowell and Kris Anka run. The hosts discuss the way the characters have aged, as well as how Rowell updates the characters for the modern age, and...

Y'know what's crazy? We could have just kept going with the BKV issues of Runaways, but instead skipped ahead to the five issue closer written by Joss Whedon. The only logical explanation is that we're all masochists, because not one of us came away liking this. Instead of quality comics, we were "treated" to some really weird racism and character assassination of Nico Minoru. Fuck you Joss Whedon...

Welcome to May! And, more importantly: the debut of Runawamay, where we spend a whole month talking our favorite Marvel characters, the Runaways. For our first episode, we're reading the series that started it all, the BKV + Adrian Alphona classic. We love BKV, don't we folks? (In this case we really do this book owns)Our theme music was composed by our wonderful friend Gwyn. You can find their wo...

If Crying in the Book Club listeners know one thing about the hosts, it's probably their complicated history with comic book writer extraordinaire Brian K Vaughan. We covered his graphic novel Pride of Baghdad in episode 4, and his name has recurred throughout this show. You may know him for iconic works like Y: The Last Man or Saga , but this episode we take on... well, let's call it a hidden gem...

This week, the crew takes a secret portal through Emily's hair to the Green, the home of the most popular DC Comics character of all time: The Swamp Thing. Ok, that may not be true. But good ol' Swampy has loomed large over Jean-Luc's comic book experiences, and so he's curated a sampler of issues to introduce Alex and Emily to the character. Those issues are: House of Secrets #92, the origin of S...

This week, we hosted the book club in an atelier, which is "A workshop or studio used by an artist." And what is podcasting, if not an art form? It definitely isn't but comics are and we're here to talk about one of the comics of all time: Witch Hat Atelier. The bulk of our conversation focused on the incredible world building of the first three volumes; the rules of the world, how those rules wer...

The book club is up a member on this episode, as first time returning guest Chad comes back to talk about Colin Lorimer's The Hunt an urban fantasy/Irish folk horror from a few years back. It's got some creepy monsters, which apparently is the #1 thing we all remembered about it! Rather than a trip down memory lane, this episode is closer to a rediscovery of... well I'll leave it open-ended as to...

What's up bro. The book club is back bro, hope you did your reading for this episode, bro. Hopefully you did, bro, because otherwise these notes will just be really annoying to you, bro. (It's a reference to the tracksuit mafia from the comic book series Hawkeye ) Anyway, we're once again heading back to the nostalgia mines for Alex and Jean-Luc as the crew discusses Matt Fraction, David Aja, Fran...

It's a two person show this week--Alex is still recovering from the high level ideas of Civil War. And to be fair, Jean-Luc and Emily are as well, So it's a lighter episode on a story about the notoriously light topic "coming of age as a woman in America." The duo discusses Jillian Tamaki's gorgeous art style and use of colors, and of course Mariko Tamaki's story about young women discovering them...

For the first book club episode of the new year, the crew checks out Mark Millar and Steve McNiven's highly influential Civil War event. It's a tall order to try and dissect the book's themes, politics, and tie ins in a reasonable time frame, but we did our best! Next, on Crying in the Book Club: Chad makes his return for the 2016 mini series The Hunt . Our theme music was composed by our wonderfu...

Happy new year! While everyone else may already be done reflecting on the year that was, the book club is turning their sights back on the debut year of the show before launching into new books. First, Jean-Luc presents his ten favorite ongoing series of the year, which Alex and Emily (who haven't read them) put in a ranked order. Then, the trio rank the books they read for the podcast. Will Watch...

(Kingdom) Come one, (Kingdom) Come all, to this, the final episode of Crying in the Book Club's first year. For Jean-Luc, this is a return to a foundational text that shaped his love of superhero comics. For Alex, a first outing with one of the most iconic stories told about some of his favorite characters. And for Emily, perhaps the best arc of all: closing the loop on some really fucking cool ac...

They tell me you're not supposed to pronounce the "x" in Spy x Family , which makes me wonder why they even put it there to begin with. We don't actually answer that question on the episode, which is a bummer, but the good news is we delve a bit deeper than insipid conversations about title stylization. Instead, the book club answers real questions about Spy x Family , a shonen manga about a spy w...

Hoo boy, did the universe ever conspire against us releasing this episode. Alex's internet went down, so he had to record from a scuffed setup. Jean-Luc's internet kept going in and out. Emily.... well, Emily's issues weren't technical but they kept dropping a pen or something and I had to edit all of it out. Nevertheless! We soldiered on and talked for a little more than an hour about the 2017 Ce...

Just like Daredevil, Crying in the Book Club has been reborn. Reborn into what, you may ask, and I simply do not have a good answer for you. But as the title suggests, we are going to talk to you about Frank Miller and David Mazuchelli's Daredevil Born Again , a major stepping stone both for superhero comics writ large and the Daredevil character specifically. And, hoo boy, is there a lot to talk...

This episode, the crew time travels back to 2017 for a look at Donnie Cates' and Geoff Shaw's breakout Image miniseries God Country . And, wow, it's almost like a different podcast with our good friend Chad Waller joining us to talk about a comic book again! You love to see it folks. Next, on Crying in the Book Club: Alex takes us back to the wild days of DC's Young Animal imprint with Shade the C...

What better way to celebrate Halloween (which is still two weeks away) than with a book about the longest Halloween ever record, Batman: The Long Halloween ? Which is a convoluted way of saying something you already know if you read the title: we're talking about Batman: The Long Halloween! Which is a classic Batman story! That starts and ends on Halloween! But first, you have to hear Alex, Emily,...

This episode, things get ~~~sppoooooky~~~ at Crying in the Book Club HQ as the crew rewinds to 2014...er, 2015? No, 17? Ah, yeah, 2021. Maybe that won't read well. It's a joke about Chilling Adventures of Sabrina 's inability to release new issues. But there are some issues that exist and dammit, we're gonna talk about them! It's a bit of a lighter episode, but there's plenty of time to go long on...